Granville Island plaque commemorates Tibetans

Twenty Tibetans killed during the uprisings in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa earlier this year will be commemorated by a plaque to be placed on Granville Island.

According to Dermod Travis, the Montreal-based executive director of the Canada Tibet Committee, the plaque will be installed next year at the Granville Island pavilion of the Trans Canada Trail. It will bear the names of 20 victims of the March riots, in which more than 200 Tibetans lost their lives.

Travis said the plaque announcement follows this year's Race for Rights, undertaken by former Team Canada rower David Kay, who cycled 7,700 kilometres from Newfoundland to Victoria to raise awareness of human-rights violations in China and Tibet.

“When we undertook Race for Rights this summer, we said that for every 50 kilometres that people pledged, we would put a plaque on the Trans Canada Trail in honour of one of the victims of the Tibetan uprising,” Travis told the Straight.

Tenzin Lhalungpa, president of the Vancouver chapter of the CTC, said the plaque is a “great” gesture.